The present invention relates to a refuse incinerator.
The incineration of refuse for disposal purposes is well known. It is also known to fragmentize refuse in suitable equipment in order to obtain light particles which are light enough so that they can float and subsequently to combust these particles while they float in air in a combustion chamber. A prior-art installation operating on this principle has equipment for grinding the refuse and blowing the resulting particles into the combustion chamber.
However, experience has shown that this is not generally a practicable approach, because due to the heterogeneous composition of the refuse which is admitted into the fragmentizing device the latter will produce not particles of more or less uniform size, but will instead produce a mix of larger and smaller particles. If it is desired to be able to combust the refuse in floating condition in a combustion chamber, then the larger particles which are as a rule heavier than the smaller ones must be returned into the fragmentizing equipment, or must be forwarded to a separate fragmentizer, in order to be sufficiently reduced in size. Even then, many particles cannot be sufficiently reduced, in which case these particles must then be removed from the remainder of the comminuted refuse, and must be otherwise disposed of, or transported to a conventional burner grate on which they can be combusted. This latter approach, however, requires a relatively large supply of excess air for the combustion of the particles on the burner grate, in order to avoid slag melts and also eliminate strands or flows of non-combusted gases which may lead to corrosion effects. Excess air, however, that is air in excess of that required for combustion, results in a loss of thermal energy and thus makes the prior-art incinerators, which are usually constructed so that their heat can be usefully recovered, less effective than they could be.